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Home » The Famous Blog » 5 Tips for Restaurants to Turn Their Website Into a Valuable Asset

5 Tips for Restaurants to Turn Their Website Into a Valuable Asset

August 17, 2011 - Last Modified: August 17, 2011 by Liz

Valuable Asset

I am always amazed every time I go online to look up local restaurants only to find either no website at all or an extremely poorly designed one that gives no valuable information except perhaps a phone number and flash lit photographs of food that looks like slop.

These are not the images one wants to make for a first impression.

I see this more and more, and just don’t understand why businesses which mostly operate face to face do not realize the importance of a professional online website.  It does not matter whether you serve food or prepare taxes, your potential customers are looking for you online first – not the big yellow book that’s used as a door stop.

Here are 5 tips to help you start cleaning up your act… I mean website.

1.  Change Your Mind!

First, you must change your mind-set.  Websites are important and should be viewed as part of your business.  In reality, websites fall under the Marketing category of your business.   Your website may well be the first impression a potential client will see.  Successful marketing leads to new sales (in your case customers), therefore if your online marketing is poor, your sales will not be as strong as they could be.

2.  Websites Do Not Have to be Interactive

Despite the amazing growth and popularity of social media and blogging, websites still serve a useful function for businesses even without these tools.    A restaurant owner does not need to be blogging about what kind of meat grinder they use to grind their hamburgers in order to make their brick and mortar business grow.   However, he/she could still benefit from online marketing as a way increase their local following.. but that’s another topic.

For restaurants, a website is a great place to showcase your menu – even your prices.   I frequently order Chinese from a local restaurant called, The Dragon Chef, which is MSG free.  Where do I go first when ordering lunch at work, or getting ready to call in my order from home?

You guessed it, their website.

When I first considered going there to eat I decided to look them up online to save the hassle just incase I didn’t get a good feeling about the place.  Instead what I saw was a website that gave me all the information I needed (directions, prices, menu items. etc.) and a bunch of photos of the inside of the restaurant.   I could tell it looked clean, the people were having fun and I remarked to my husband, “Ok, this place looks nice – let’s try it”.

Their website sold me and made money off of me for sure – all thanks to their website.

3.  Websites are Not Expensive or High Maintenance

Here is your good old capitalism at work – encourage business competition and prices go down.   Today it seems there are so many web hosting companies out there that they are all trying to offer the cheapest price to motivate customers to sign up.

The provider I uses charges only $6.95 a month for the full year, or $9.95 per month on a monthly basis – plus I can have unlimited domains.   Is it worth it?  Yes!

I highly recommend hiring someone to develop your site for you.   Either find a friend whose work you trust, or go to freelance websites such as www.elance.com where you can hire out a professional.  Remember to keep it professional – it’s like a first date and impressions count!

Once your site is up and running to your satisfaction, you don’t have to worry about it anymore unless you need to update any information such as phone numbers, location, etc.

4.  Convey the Right Tone Through the Website

Websites which are for small businesses that deal directly with consumers should have a personal feel to them.  True, an accounting office may not reek of fun and personality, but no one wants a “fun” accountant.   I want my accountant to be serious and take my taxes serious.   Their website needs to convey a serious tone – but I also want him to be friendly, so I’d make sure any photos on the site are of them smiling at the camera.

For restaurants, using The Dragon Chef example above, I know I want to go there because I want to have a fun time when I go out – and according to the photographs I can tell I will.    Think about the tone you want to convey for your business when you meet a customer face to face, and make sure that is the tone of your website.  From the colors to the font size – this is your chance to win new business.

5.  Do Not Use a Point and Shoot Camera

Ask your friends or family if they know of anyone who has a nice professional camera and can take quality photographs.    There is a good reason why every wedding hires a professional photographer – it’s a memory they want to capture accurately and forever.   Your website is part of your business and should be viewed the same way.

You should want to create professional images that convey a professional appearance – and this means your food that you serve.   Using a point and shoot camera with a flash will leave your food looking flat, soggy and all together unappetizing.   Your food is your product and you need to make sure they shine – but not from a flash!

Running a small business is very difficult, no one denies that.   However, for all the perseverance, hard work, long hours and sacrifices you put in, don’t you think it is important to have a website that accurately describes what you do and who you are?

First impressions are everything and your website will indeed in this day and age leave a first impression to your visitors.   Let’s just make sure it’s the right impression.

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Filed Under: Marketing

About Liz

Follow @SimpleItalian

Liz majored in Business Administration with a minor in Music Business. She enjoys creating anything new and can only hold a job more than 8 months if she is able to take on new challenges and tasks. She spends most of her free time on the computer working on her website where she writes about various italian recipes and topics related to cooking. She hopes you stop by!

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{ 12 Responses }

  1. Tom says:
    Yes, keeping it professional would be so important, but for some reason, lots of neighborhood restaurants have really bad looking sites. I mean it would be so important nowadays, with people searching for places to eat online. What do they look at? 1. Reviews 2. Site itself If the food and service is good, the reviews should be good, but if the site stinks, that just might put off a dinner-browsing potential customer. I think one of the biggest marketing asset a restaurant can have is a good site and good social media, but I guess most restaurant owners haven't really grasped the importance of this yet.
  2. Alan Fuller says:
    A comment says "If we think in a marketing-business mindset, websites should be another step in the business-plans." But what most people don't get is a web-site needs to be part ofteh marketing plan (which is part of the business plan). Many businesses think they should build a web site and thats it, but that is far from it, building a web site is like getting some posters printed, if you haven't got anywhere to put them up no one will see them - you have wasted your money! With a web site you also need to have an internet marketing plan, be that SEO, PPC or Social and you need to allocate a budget to it too. Otherwise you will have a web site that virtually no one sees.
  3. theComplex says:
    Change in mindset is definitely one of the most important. I've found that people have no idea why they even want a website or web presence other than "someone told me I need one."
  4. Jason says:
    There was an absolutely hilarious article on Slate.com about why most restaurant websites are so terrible. He really nailed every point.
    • Liz says:
      Jason - that is a good article - great read! Thanks for posting it.
  5. Mitz Pantic says:
    I made a simple website for a friend who owns a restaurant. I added a simple contact form for people to submit a food order for takeaway. That order is delivered onto the computer screens at the restaurant. My friend now says I can eat for free for life for making this simple form...Their business increased by 50%..
    • Liz says:
      That is awesome!
  6. Atulperx says:
    Many new bloggers and web webmasters never think about 5th point and most of the time use normal camera to take pictures. I have not noticed any restaurant website but seen few furniture promotion sites with low quality images. When you are planing to promote your business online then always remember that you are targeting global market indirectly. So better to spend few more bucks and hire a professional photographer to take few snaps of your products for website use.
  7. Edgar says:
    Despite the fact that creating a website these days will neither cost you a fortune nor a Bill Gates brain to do it, although i don't really get it why most local businesses don't do it. I think the single logical reason is that they need to change their minds as you stated above.
  8. Ryan Biddulph says:
    Hi Liz, It all starts with changing your mindset, glad you made that #1. How we choose to think leads us into certain actions. The recipe is simple. If you want to create a more valuable website for your restaurant or any business, focus on how you can help others with your site. Make it easy to navigate, informative, and most of all: put yourself in your visitor's shoes. Checking out your site from a 3rd party perspective - or getting feedback - is an invaluable tool when it comes to revamping your site. Thanks Liz. RB
  9. Liz says:
    Thanks for the comment Gera! It is true many people who follow their "passion" albeit food or some other business, sometimes lack the business mindset that would help decrease the number of times we have to learn the "hard way".
  10. Gera says:
    Hi Liz, Solid advices here for foodies who run businesses, in this case restaurants. If we think in a marketing-business mindset, websites should be another step in the business-plans. I don't agree about Interactive (speaking about blogging yes - but not in the social media arena) You can use social media to boost the presence online, e.g. putting a facebook badge of the restaurant and leverage the relationship with potential customers on a part of the website. I do agree about professional images, please! use pro images on the websites, if not your brand can lose power. Cheers, Gera

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